


It may be quite simple but...

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [19]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Darcy Lewis Feels, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 10:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21052856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.July 1973: Birthday





	It may be quite simple but...

**Author's Note:**

> Friends! Lovers! Slow burners! You may recognize this fic from Tumblr, back when I was posting little snips over the summer, before I knew what I was doing with this monster. Hope you enjoy reading it again. 
> 
> Big news/mild spoilers for upcoming fics: thanks to crimtastic, I realized what the AO3 history button is/is for and found out that my Shieldshock Anniversary is coming up at the end of the month. I thought, what a better way to celebrate 5 years on this beautiful ship than by finishing up this first major arc of Steve and Darcy's story and giving the people (also me) what they want? 
> 
> So we've got this fic, then just one more before That. Fic. I've been teasing so the plan is to get everything written and shaped up nicely to have that one ready to go on my anniversary, October 28th. Sound good? Good. Bon appetit!

Darcy could admit when she’d had enough. Usually. She knew her limits and it had been a long time since she’d been anything more than barely tipsy.

But she was well beyond tipsy that night. She was good and truly _buzzed_. She studied her reflection in Tangie’s bathroom mirror. Her glassy eyes looked larger than usual and her lips were pink and swollen from the way she’d been biting them once the alcohol had set in.

But that was okay, she reminded herself. She could enjoy a night with her friends, celebrating her pretend birthday. It went well with all the other pretending she was doing lately. Pretending everything was fine. Pretending she was going to take the civil servant’s test with Tangie in September so they could switch from waitresses to hospital employees together. Pretending she wasn’t thinking and stressing and worrying about all the ways this plan of Janet’s could go wrong.

Pretending she wasn’t thinking about all the ways it could still be wrong even if it went _right_.

If she kept up her pretending, then she could pretend she wasn’t thinking about Janet’s plan at all. Not about the timer that had been stamped onto her life as she’d come to know it. And not about the trip she and Steve would have to take in just over a month.

There was a government-funded research facility about two miles from Lake Tahoe. Inside that facility, many levels underground, was a machine. A machine that had been built by a starry-eyed scientist who thought he could create a dimensional rift and travel the multiverse. A machine that had never worked properly and had killed its creator when he’d first turned it on. A machine that had been sitting untouched for the better part of a decade, a monument to the dangers of fringe science, until March 11, 1973, when Dr. Tim Struthers applied the right math—Janet’s math—and brought it back to life. Only instead of a method of walking through the multiverse, Janet’s equations had turned it into a time machine.

“Sweet birthday baaaybay,” Tangie called in a sing-song voice as Darcy made her way through the clumps of people in the hallway and living room. It was a welcome change to the overwhelming anxiety she was starting to feel every time she thought about what was waiting for them at Tahoe. Darcy shook the thoughts from her head and forced her spirits to lift again.

_Birthday baby_, she told herself. _Right._

The host of Darcy’s birthday party was perched on the gold velvet poof in the center of her living room. Tangie’s smile was all white teeth and shimmering gold lipstick that looked even more ethereal in contrast to her dark brown skin. “Good news!” she cried. “You’re no longer the whitest one here!” She pointed toward the door with the hand clutching a glass of champagne and a cigarette. “Look who finally made it!”

Darcy turned and felt her own smile double at the sight of Steve, laughing at Tangie’s introduction, making his way slowly through the crowd. She stretched up on her toes and fell into a hug around his neck as soon as he was in arm’s reach. She felt him laugh as his arms went around her in return. “Hey, birthday girl,” he said over the music when he let her go.

Darcy noticed he was clutching a bouquet of cheerful daisies in his hand. She pointed to them with a grin. “Are those for Tange?”

“They better not be!” Tangie exclaimed, unfolding her long legs from underneath herself and getting to her feet. “It’s your birthday.”

Steve laughed again. “They’re for you,” he said, and pressed the flowers into Darcy’s hands.

“But I will take them and put them in water,” Tangie said, snatching them up before Darcy could say thank you. “You need a drink,” she continued with a nod toward the door that led to the deck. “Steve, there’s beer out back if you want, or Darren’s playing bartender in the kitchen.”

“Beer’s fine,” Steve assured her and trailed after Darcy toward the door before she even realized she’d beckoned him to follow her.

The air was cool enough to make her sigh when it hit her skin and stopped the sweat that had begun to prickle at her hairline. There had been plenty of people lingering in a cloud of pot smoke when she’d stepped out earlier for a hit, but they’d all migrated back inside, leaving the deck empty but for Tangie’s cat, Joan. The fat tabby was laying on top of the cooler and protested with an obligatory swat when Steve went to move her.

Darcy giggled and sat on the built-in bench around the border of the deck. Steve grabbed two bottles and offered one to her. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “I’m a little over-served as it is,” she informed him.

“Oh, I couldn’t tell,” he said lightly, dropping onto the bench beside her.

She returned his grin when she caught it and leaned her whole body into a nudge, dismayed when he didn’t move an inch. “You missed me sober,” she went on. “Mr. Tardy to the Party.”

“I know,” he said, sounding regretful. “Sorry. I got caught up with some last-minute stuff.”

She didn’t want to think about where he’d been. He’d been at Berkeley with Janet and Tim, going over logistics and finer details he’d share with her later. Darcy was supposed to have gone too—before Tangie announced she was throwing her a birthday party.

Her head landed on his shoulder as he cracked his beer open and took a sip. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said simply, instead of asking him anything about Tim or Janet or Tahoe. “Wouldn’t be a proper pretend birthday without you.”

She heard him smile against the bottle when he pressed it to his lips. “Aside from your slip from sobriety,” he said after a moment had passed. “Did I miss anything?”

“Not really.” She shook her head again. “Oh, well, Debbie and Rick got into a huge fight because she thinks he’s cheating on her.”

“I thought you told me he _is_ cheating on her,” Steve muttered.

Darcy shrugged. “I guess tonight she decided to stop pretending she didn’t know that? I don’t know. Anyway, she threw a glass at his head, he called her a crazy bitch, then fifteen minutes later they were making out on the bed with the coats so,” she buzzed her numb lips with an exhale. 

“Well, the course of true love never did run smooth,” he said wryly and toasted the air before he took another drink. “You seemed pretty eager to get out of the house,” he commented. “Everything else okay?”

“The noise in there was starting to get to me,” she admitted. “A little too much secondhand smoke and Carl won’t stop playing Sly and the goddamn Family Stone.”

“I heard,” Steve chuckled before he glanced sideways at her. “I can take you home if you want.”

“Nah,” she said, sitting up again. “I just wanted a minute,” she shrugged and reached out idly to fiddle with the knobs on the unreliable radio on the corner of the deck railing. “Maybe find something to dance to that isn’t quite so funkadelic.”

When she looked back, Steve had raised his eyebrows. “We’re dancing, now?”

Darcy wet her lips and nodded. “We are,” she decided, officially just drunk enough to throw caution to the wind and wonder if she’d regret asking him later. “And you’re not allowed to leave me hanging,” she said quickly. “Because it’s my pretend birthday which makes me–”

“The pretend birthday princess,” Steve finished with a tired smile. “I remember the rules.” He set his beer down as Darcy found a few bars of acoustic guitars on a crackling, fleeting signal a little further down the line. “Although,” he added, getting to his feet. “I don’t recall them being quite so absolute on my pretend birthday.”

Darcy snorted and took the hand he extended. “You could be equally obnoxious,” she assured him, allowing him to pull her up to stand. “You’re just too polite to make any demands.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. His other hand went to her waist as the song changed and the familiar intro to an Elton John song began to play.

Darcy hummed with contentment as she stretched her arm up and around his shoulder, settling her hand comfortably at the back of his neck. “I love this song,” she said softly.

He smiled. “You love every song.”

“Every Elton song is deserving of my love,” Darcy reminded as their feet began moving slowly to the music. “_And you can tell everybody that this is your song_,” she sang softly along with the radio. She looked up and smiled at him, illuminated by the yellow porch light. “_It may be quite simple but now that it’s done…”_

_“I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind_,” Steve surprised her by singing back, just loud enough for her to hear. “_That I put down in words._”

Delighted, she continued, “_How wonderful life is, now you’re in the world._”

The song was easy to remember, and easy to follow while Steve twirled her at the next verse and let her do most of the singing. It wasn’t until he’d twirled her back in, a little closer than before, that his hand slipped to the small of her back and Darcy suddenly forgot what was supposed to come next.

“_Anyway the thing is_,” Steve sang softly and she could have sworn his eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them. “_What I really mean_–”

Her chest was feeling just a little tighter than usual, the longer she looked up him. “_Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen_,” she managed, before the song faded out with a crackle of static and the station bled over to one playing something she didn’t recognize. Steve kept his hand on her back. She didn’t let go of his hand.

She didn’t know how long they would have stayed like that if the thin strap of her red sundress hadn’t slipped down her shoulder. The movement snapped her attention to the right, just in time to see Steve’s fingers slip beneath it and drag it back into place. He barely touched her. No excuse for the goosebumps that he left in his wake.

Darcy swallowed around a suddenly and inconveniently dry throat. “Thank you for the daisies,” she said, her voice just barely above a whisper. “I didn’t,” she made herself blink and shook her head, “I didn’t say it when you walked in.” Her teeth pressed into her bottom lip. “They’re my favorite.”

Steve gave her a soft smile. “I know,” he said. “You told me.”

She swallowed again and cursed her earlier vodka tonics for the fuzziness of her head. Of course he knew that. Because he was Steve. She’d told him ages ago, most likely. Probably their first spring in California together—when the wildflowers had cropped up in window boxes along the streets and she hadn’t been able to resist bringing home a few bouquets to brighten their sparse apartment.

She had to stop doing this—had to stop pretending this could ever be more than it was. Had to stop turning these little moments into something more. She was only digging herself deeper by wishing deeper meaning into Steve’s usual sweet gestures. Making everything harder on herself and confusing the best parts of their friendship in the process. It was only going to make saying goodbye that much more painful.

And it would make the next ten years without him unbearable.

She should step back, she told herself. Just drop her head and take a tiny step—Steve would too and then she could breathe again. But she didn’t take a step back. And neither did he.

“Yo! Birthday girl!” Gil’s voice cut through her like a splash of cold water. She looked over her shoulder and saw her co-worker leaning halfway out of the house on the doorframe. The heavy beat of the party followed him and matched the bright, cheerful grin he gave her. “Get in here and blow out your candles. We wanna eat this cake.”

Steve dropped her hand and stepped back to pick up his beer again, looking much more casual than she felt. Darcy nodded and pushed her hair out of her face. “Be right there,” she promised.

When she looked back at Steve, he was smiling again. Whatever she thought she’d seen in his expression before was gone. “Best part of two birthdays, right?”

Darcy shoved away the flash of heat she’d felt and prayed it hadn’t left a blush oh her cheeks. She smiled back. “You know it.” He crossed to the back door ahead and held it open for her. Darcy went ahead, back inside.

Back to playing pretend for a little longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to Russian Doll and also the amazing Sir Elton John for unknowingly lending me his words and music for these two idiots in love. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought?
> 
> \--
> 
> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly. 
> 
> *kisses*


End file.
